Monetary Policy Transparency in the UK: The Impact of Independence and Inflation Targeting

There is a widespread belief that the transparency of UK monetary policy has increased substantially as a result of the introduction of inflation targeting in 1992 and a number of procedural and institutional reforms which accompanied and followed it. Here, money market responses (and other data) are used to test the possibility that improved anticipation of policy moves may be the result of developments other than the institutional reforms popularly cited. We find overwhelming evidence that the switch to inflation targeting itself significantly reduced monetary policy surprises, while subsequent reforms have contributed little. Where we advance substantially on earlier work is to look at the cross‐sectional dispersion of agents’ anticipation. If the benefit of transparency is the elimination of policy surprise, there is little benefit if the averagely correct anticipations of agents conceal a wide dispersion of view.     

Teaching Inflation Targeting: An Analysis for Intermediate Macro

Over the last decade, many central banks have adopted policies known as inflation targeting. If intermediate-level macroeconomics students are to be prepared to think about current policy issues, it is important to provide them with an introduction to the macroeconomic implications of inflation targeting. Unfortunately, the standard aggregate demand-aggregate supply frameworks commonly used to teach intermediate macroeconomics are not well suited for this task because they are expressed in terms of output and the price level and because they fail to make explicit the policy objectives of the central bank. The author provides a simple graphical device involving the output gap and the inflation rate that overcomes these problems and that can be used to teach intermediate macroeconomics students about inflation targeting.     

A Note on Inflation Targeting

The authors present a pedagogical graphical exposition to illustrate the stabilizing effect of price target zones. Based on a textbook AD-AS apparatus, they find that authorities' commitment to defend a price target zone will affect the public's inflation expectations and, in turn, reduce actual inflation. They also find that, when the economy experiences supply shocks, the announcement that the monetary authorities intend to defend a price target zone will reduce the variability of domestic prices but raise the variability of domestic output relative to a free-price regime. However, when the economy experiences demand shocks, a price target zone tends to lower the variability of both domestic prices and out-put relative to a free-price regime.     

A Union-bashing Model of Inflation Targeting

This paper shows that in an open two‐sector economy, centralization of wage setting may be important in determining the employment (and welfare) effects of different monetary targets. By disciplining unions in the sectors open to international trade, exchange rate targeting yields higher employment than inflation targeting when wage‐setting is more centralized in the open sector than in the shielded sector. When wage‐setting centralization is higher in the shielded sector, we show that general price‐level inflation targeting, while better than exchange rate targeting, is inferior to an inflation target that focuses more heavily on shielded sector prices.     

Inflation Targeting: Some Extensions

Previous analyses of the implementation of inflation targeting are extended to monetary policy responses to different shocks, consequences of model uncertainty, and effects of interest rate smoothing and stabilization. Model uncertainty, output stabilization, and interest rate stabilization or smoothing all call for a more gradual adjustment of the conditional inflation forecast toward the inflation target. The conditional inflation forecast is the natural intermediate target during inflation targeting. The optimal way of reacting to shocks is hence to check how they affect the inflation forecast and then take the appropriate action.
JEL classification : E 42; E 52; E 58     

通货膨胀目标制实践经验的国际考察

作为一种新型的货币政策制度框架,标准型通货膨胀目标制在全球的中央银行中已经获得了一定的认同.然而迄今为止,我们还缺乏一个对目前大量的通货膨胀目标制实践经验进行简洁而全面的概括,借以对货币政策的实践和通货膨胀目标钉住者的前景展望提供相应指南.而这种指南之所以必要,是因为队伍不断庞大的发展中国家和新兴市场经济体正在考虑是否采纳通货膨胀目标制.借鉴标准型通货膨胀目标制国家在控制通货膨胀过程中所积累的经验,探讨通货膨胀目标制国家面临的主要问题、发展趋势、政策实践,其目的是为了从国家的角度来思考是否应该采纳通货膨胀目标制;而对于已经实施通货膨胀目标制的国家,则要考虑如何健全这一制度框架.     

Inflation Targeting and Regional Inflation Persistence: Evidence from Korea

The adoption of a credible monetary policy regime such as inflation targeting is known to reduce the persistence of inflation fluctuations. This conclusion, however, is typically derived from aggregate inflation or sectoral inflation rates, not from regional inflation data. This paper studies the regional dimension of inflation targeting; that is, the consequences of inflation targeting for regional inflation persistence. Based on data for Korean cities and provinces it is shown that the adoption of inflation targeting leads: (i) to a fall in inflation persistence at the regional level; and (ii) to a reduction in the cross‐regional heterogeneity in inflation persistence. A factor model lends further support to the role of the common component, and, hence, monetary policy, for regional inflation persistence.     

Monetary Policy and Financial Stability: The Role of Inflation Targeting

This article examines the relationship between Inflation targeting (IT) and financial instability from 1990 to 2015 for Asian economies. To measure financial instability, a multidimensional financial conditioning index is calculated following the ECB's approach. Using a fixed effects panel data model the study finds that adoption of IT policy in Asian economies has an adverse impact on financial stability, thus rejecting the ‘conventional wisdom’ hypothesis. Further, the Vector Autoregression (VAR) result shows that an IT regime increases housing returns and encourages investors to take higher risks.     

Inflation Targeting as a Framework for Monetary Policy: A Cross-Country Analysis

This study makes use of a dynamic Taylor‐type model to examine the conduct of monetary policy by central banks that profess to engage in inflation targeting. Previous research regarding inflation targeting and Taylor‐type rules is reviewed and a dynamic Taylor‐type model is developed. Tests for regime shifts upon the adoption of inflation targeting indicate a significant change in policy in each of the nations in the study for which sufficient data were available. Next, the central bank reaction functions were estimated. Results suggest that most of the central banks conducted a policy of inflation targeting by seeking to contain inflationary pressures rather than reacting to current inflation.     

The Exchange Rate and Inflation in the UK

The United Kingdom is a highly open economy, and has a monetary policy strategy of targeting inflation in consumer prices. In this paper, we look at the evidence from the UK on inflation behaviour, and examine the propositions from several theoretical models about inflation dynamics in an open economy, focusing in particular on the hypothesized connections between the exchange rate and consumer price inflation. Theoretical open‐economy macroeconomic models ‘cover the waterfront’ on this issue, ranging from ‘exchange rate disconnect’ to a rigid link between nominal exchange rate changes and inflation. We estimate on UK data the open‐economy Phillips curves implied by the alternative explanations. We argue that, of the alternatives considered, only a model where imports are modelled as an intermediate good, as in McCallum and Nelson (1999) , provides a reasonable match with the data. Unlike the standard model, in which imports are treated as a final consumer good, the intermediate‐goods specification provides support for a policy of CPI inflation targeting.     

中国采用通货膨胀目标制的条件研究

币值稳定、货币政策工具的独立性、深化的金融系统、中央银行的责任性和透明度是采用通货膨胀目标制需要满足的现实条件.在保持经济增长前提下的币值稳定可以视作我国货币政策的首要目标,它满足了通货膨胀目标制对币值稳定的要求.人民银行货币政策工具独立性的提高、中国金融系统的逐步深化、人民银行责任性和透明度的增强为中国采用通货膨胀目标制准备了现实条件.     

通货膨胀成本和收益的分析--对我国通货膨胀的实证检验

通货膨胀在经济理论和经济实践中都是一个重要的问题,原因是通货膨胀过高会给社会造成较高的成本,本文分析认为不仅未预期的通货膨胀而且预期通货膨胀也带来一定的成本,通货膨胀目标在各国都不为零.通过对我国货币供给增长率与通货膨胀率进行单位根检验和Granger影响关系检验表明,我国现阶段货币政策实施中货币供给仍然是重要的货币政策工具,货币供给通过影响通货膨胀而作用于经济运行.     

The Impact of Inflation Uncertainty on Interest Rates in the UK

This paper assesses the effect of expected inflation and inflation risk on interest rates within the Fisher hypothesis framework. Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic models are used to estimate the conditional variability of inflation as a proxy for risk. With the UK quarterly data from 1958:4 to 1994:4, we found that both the expected inflation and the conditional variability of inflation positively affect the UK three‐month Treasury‐bill rate.     

通货膨胀目标制的理论思考--论我国货币政策中介目标的重新界定

随着经济与金融的不断发展，货币供应量与通货膨胀率等最终目标的相关性以及货币供应量自身的可控性和可测性也受到越来越多的干扰。为此，自1990年代起，一些国家相继改弦更张，把货币政策目标由货币供应量转为通货膨胀率，由此形成所谓的通货膨胀目标制。本文运用模型分析，在封闭经济的假设基础上分别讨论了严格通货膨胀目标制和灵活通货膨胀目标制。针对我国目前的货币供应量目标缺乏有效性状况，本文认为可以借鉴通货膨胀目标制对我国货币政策中介目标进行重新界定。     

通货膨胀影响股票市场的实证分析

本文主要考察通货膨胀对中国股票市场股票收益的影响.计量分析发现,通货膨胀与中国股票市场的股票收益呈负相关关系,但在统计上并不显著,且通货膨胀对沪深股市的影响存在较为明显的差异特征.这表明,尽管深沪两市基本制度架构相似,但市场运行模式存在一定的差异性.     

Time Series Analysis of Inflation Targeting in Selected Countries

Abstract

We analyze a set of countries which adopted inflation targeting (IT) as a policy tool. We model the pre‐IT period with ARMA and GARCH methods, and conduct the one‐step ahead forecasting for the remainder of the times series data. The actual and forecasted inflation levels are compared for each country. We find that even though the actual inflation levels are lower than the forecasted ones, there is no statistical evidence to suggest that the adoption of IT causes a structural break in the inflation levels of the countries which adopt IT.     

通货膨胀目标制在中国的适用性分析

近几年,国内学术界建议政府采纳通货膨胀目标制的呼声越来越高。由通货膨胀目标制的内涵出发,客观地阐述通货膨胀目标制的优越性,根据中国当前的具体国情及其适用条件,通货膨胀目标制在中国暂时尚缺乏可行性。